James Ingram AO surely has his heart in the right place; but are there matters in his mind that he dare not mention? If there are, the world might become a better place if he did.

He is probably aware of the ecological restraints within which the human mammal resides, and of statements regarding it by people of eminence within that field. People such as:

Charles Fenner at the BAAS 1937 meeting in Nottingham – “If lands are productive, population increases, and the pressure becomes as great as ever.”

David Davis, employed during the 1940s to do the science for the USA’s attempts at uban rat minimisation . He noted that poisoning and trapping will not achieve the aims; only deprivation of food will do that. He noted the similarities of behavior between human and rodent populations.

Ecologist Alan Newsome in a personal comment in the 1990s regarding the fundamentals driving mammalian populations – “food and sex”.

If James Ingram is aware of the above, as might be expected, then why does he not incorporate it into his work? His field would have at least some prospect of eventual success if he were to call publicly and loudly for more, and successful, effort towards population minimization in the less-developed world? The appropriate direction was agreed upon at the UN conference on population and development at Cairo in 1994. If Ingram agrees with that (as he should), why not give it a plug at every opportunity

Alas with the onset of the global economic recession and continued resistence to global warming initiatives, the future world will certainly be a place far worse off. Can humanity continue to denude the planet and expect Mother Nature to be non-responsive. Food vs population growth: a recipe for disaster. Mythical gods can't help us, maybe science and technology can rise to the challenge, but it better be sooner rather than later.

Colin -

Interesting, in the main report they recommend:

"Education, especially of women and girls, is pivotal to success in developing countries, and should be addressed in all aspects of aid delivery,"

This is the first step in every country for reducing growth rates. When women have the power to decide, they usually get pregnant less often.

In Ingram's article he says:

"The value of Australia’s exported food and fibre is some four times as much as the value of our consumption. Our goal should at least be to maintain that ratio."

The easy way to maintain the ratio is to keep our consumption down which means keep population down. That way all the increases in productivity on the farms, will increase the produce available for export.

To me, these are two thinly veiled requests for more attention to population. I think somebody at the Crawford Fund's World Food Crisis Task Force knows very well that population is a critical issue, but they don't want to step too far. There may be an unwritten code within the UN and other NGO's that says "Don't step on our policy areas and we won't step on yours." That keeps people like Ingram from really nailing population even if it seems so obvious for food.

Unbelievable!

I think that the posters so far have been way too gentle with James Ingram. There can be NO EXCUSE for the population growth factor being effectively left out of an article like this.

Addressing population growth HEAD ON with at least as much effort as food provision, is of the utmost importance. Without an almighty effort in that direction, all efforts at better feeding the world’s poor would simply be feeding the grossly unsustainable continuance of rapid population growth, which would take us directly away from a more equitable and sustainable world.

Obviously Mr Ingram knows this. So how on earth can he sleep at night after writing an article in which he omits any mention of the need to directly address population growth, and espouses the only approach as being continuously increasing food supplies?

This is just awful.

The piece is wrong in a number of respects - not just in the failure to discuss population. It implicitly adopts the 'we'll find a technological solution' to the problems of hunger and food production. It incorrectly assumes that the price of food reflects technological advances and not the corporatisation of the food chain and the subsequent externalising of the costs of food production - particularly the environmental and health costs. The piece assumes that treating food as an export commodity is actually sane - the priority must be food security and food sovereignty - not forcing countries to grow food for export, particularly exports that support our obscenely excessive meat eating habits. Finally, any discussion of food production systems must also discuss climate change and peak oil - fundamental changes are coming and Australia is incredibly ill-prepared.

In 2006/7 Australia imported about 2 million tonnes of food, mainly
soymeal which we called feed. This was used in addition to another
11 or so million tonnes to feed livestock. Roughly half goes
to grainfed beef and the rest to chickens and pigs. The former enables
us to export both colon cancer and heart disease to keep rich
overseas cancer and heart disease experts in business. We also
export plenty of dairy food, this is so that the prostate cancer
experts won't feel left out of our beneficence. The Dairy Industry
uses far more of the Murray Darling Basin water than any other
industry.

When I grew up I shared James Ingram's rosy picture of Australia
as a food bowl of the world. I think it was even true at some stage.
But as our meat production has grown, we have less and less food
to export and more of what we do simply makes people as sick
as we are. But it's worse than that. By exporting heart disease
and cancer to rich people in other countries we require them
to establish world class medical facilities for dealing with diseases
that they didn't used to have, this robs the poor of vital resources.
The best stats on this come from Japan where a massive rise in
colon cancer with the introduction of more meat and dairy changed the
nature of the health system. But the same is happening in countries
which can ill afford it. E.g., Egypt, to which we export red meat and
live animals has rich people getting triple bypasses while many
are in destitute poverty. Hell, the CSIRO even does research on
how to increase meat marbling to make export meat even better
at clogging arteries. So we now would much rather withhold grain
from the global market and use it to make beef for Japan.

Yes, James, Australia is still a player in the problem of global
hunger, but we are now playing for the devil.